It's incredible you memorized this. However, I feel it would have been so nice to see the original manuscript. Is there a copy on IMSLP?

Woah the second one 😍

Wonderful.

Great John! Quirky indeed 😊

wich piece is this?

Thanks for your perfect performance

In the repeat of first section there's an effect or ornamnet being used, I think between the 2nd and 3rd measure (perhaps used further in piece too). I notice the late Scott Ross used it as well in his recording. Maybe it's something highlighted on certain stave editions. Anyway it's very nice, and I'm wondering if it has a name?

Understood the assignment.

Great commentary, John! Amd excellent performance as well.

This is beautiful. Tablature looks like dwarf scrolls to me. I'm thinking about properly transcribing your performance to Musescore! :D

I like the sour squeezes of meantone, in moderation, with lots of pure thirds and gently chorusing detuned perfect 5ths. Great description and demonstration. You’ve convinced me to tune and try Rameau.

Thank you very much, John - wonderfully explained and performed! 🙏

Okay, having to read 3 diffrent keys is one challenge. Fine. But the general baroque bass is not given in numbers either. So, the musician has to feel and put in the harmonies himself. Thats a nice challenge. Whooops.

How does Rameau compare in sound with Kirnberger III? I normally consider it nearer to Meantone. I tuned everything in Kalamata to Kirnberger III save the Yamaha C3 upstairs to Kellner. Final chord is very lovely and not too sharp at all.

Thank you always! ❤

Thank your for both the performance as well as the informative introduction. Welcome back! :)

Good to hear you again! I understand the desire to protect the harpsichord from the elements; I bought a small spinet (out of an interest in trying temperaments - though my playing is poor!) which was severely damaged by humidity.

Hello from Texas! Good to see you, and hear your music.

My older brother was quite involved with various tuning systems as pianist, organist, and harpsichordist, and was tuning to his pleasure. Even though I performed on harpsichord numerous times, I am primarily a pianist and conductor. Among my symphony friends in past times, especially string players, tuning conversations and applications were sophisticated in nature and a little irrelevant to me. Although I hear every tiny difference in pitch and feel every tiny difference of nuance and color, whether purely melodic, or within harmonies, actual practice required a tune it up satisfactorily, on the spot, and let it go attitude. Really, just no time to micro adjust all tunings and apply difficult listening, playing adjustments among players to acquire “exotic” tunings, even if very beautiful. Impossible in the real concert world, even with world class players. So….typical piano tunings sufficed, whether orchestra or chamber group, or solo keyboard perfomance. There was one time though that I could not stand the usual and quite expert tuning (my tuner was good enough for Alfred Brendel who was known to be most demanding), of the grotrian steinweg I was playing in preparation for a performance of the Schumann piano concerto. The main theme in a minor so irritated my nervous system that I really complained to the tuner in a quite demostrative way. He said, “let me try something.” After his tuning alteration, a complete retuning, I was so relieved to hear the beauty I knew was possible in that much repeated theme. I noticed no unpleasant differences anywhere else in any one of the 3 movements. To this day, I am uncertain what he did. That leads me to say that somewhere along the way as singer, pianist, conductor, I missed out on instruction, theory, concerning tuning systems. I wish I had learned to tune my own instruments. Maybe time constraints, partly stemming from preparing huge amounts of piano repertoire from memory and programming orchestral music from Tellemann, to living composers, and everyone in between created a musical hierarchy that discluded theoretical investigations. It seems odd to me that having highly developed my analytical skills concerning thick complicated scores, that I would not have investigated the physics side of things a bit more. Well, that was a long statement… Anyhow, just now, I am playing about half of the well tempered clavier, both from bks 1 and 2, and have a thousand thoughts about all things Bach…how strange it is to go from c sharp major to f major and so on in the preludes and fugues. I put them in various orders, jumping around for the delightful conrtrasts… Some need a custom tuning! Still, I make up for what seems to be a deficit caused by timbre (I play them at the piano), or the sense that some keys do not get the color they need…by creating beauty and interest in other ways. I vote for the quarter comma meantone version here…the Rameau makes me uneasy. The Kirnberger is just OK. There is something quite beautiful, arresting about the meantone. On first hearing, it struck me as interesting, and on repeated hearings, it became clear to me that the sense of harmoniousness bordering on the spiritual, sublime, whatever, was not compromised by the “out of tuneness” in certain places, and, actually, the “out of tuneness” seems, if I might say so, somehow natural, and very beautiful. But, I believe that is close to what Michael said in his talk if I understood, or remember correctly. I am not sure what leaves me cold about the Rameau tuning. I might just be afraid to say it… It sounds like an uneasy, somewhat compromised, unnatural, overly manipulated…inconsistent tuning system. Something like that. But, I may be way off… My feeling about it has nothing to do with Michael or his performance. Bravo for such an interesting and well prepared presentation. Thank you. Will look for more of your stuff! I am learning something.😊

Wow love this

No demonstration. That's just madness!

What on earth is the point of just shifting the pitch a semi tone down? That means youre still stuck in the exact same soundscape of a 440hz instrument. Its not a change in pitch its literally just transpositon but doing it with the strings instead of the keys lol. Seems very fishy that it was decided to standardise supposed baroque tuning to perfectly match 440hz thereby not in any way sounding any different. So youre missing out on a whole spectrum of notes between semi tones.

I like the rameau of its pure and straight harmonies. Other two has muddy or too bright like honky-tonk sometimes.

I prefer meantone Temperament - also i invented and build several Instruments on base of 19tone equal, but you can bend the notes and so play everything just, if you like - even classic and romantic and many modern or popular music sounds very good, but Bach is problematic. This first piece of Bach you play... sounds realy nice in meantone

which temperament is closest to the equal temperament used for guitar?

RAMEAU was the most satisfying for me! The others were OK - but the High F# in the other two really convinced me they were "wrong" for my ears! They were awful sounding! 😁😄

J’aime tellement cette pièce que j’ai décidé de la travailler mais quelle complexité dans une pièce si courte! Il y a bien sûr les ornements, souvent nouveaux si l’on est habitué à ceux du piano mais c’est surtout la rythmique (les enchaînements de rythmes) souvent inattendue qui exige beaucoup d’attention et de travail. Malgré tout la pièce en vaut la peine. Elle a une grandeur qui saisit et nous transporte dans un autre temps…celui où justement on prenait davantage le temps et son temps. La musique de Chambonnieres n’est pas trop alourdie par les ornements (ou leur excès) contrairement à celle de d’Anglebert dont j’ai quand même réussi à trouver une pièce où j’arrive à ne crouler sous les ornements et donc à respirer un peu l’air de grandeur et noblesse de cette époque. Pour y parvenir, le secret est de les jouer lentement et même très lentement comme vous en donner l’exemple ici.

Interesting, but I'm left wondering if any of these are better than 12TET. Do so many people prefer the Kirnberger (from my very unscientific reading of comments!) because it's closer to what we're swimming in these days or because it actually has some inherent beauty (perhaps from the equality of the intervals)? And - for most keyboard music, which is tonically mobile - are the advantages worth the costs, the occasional resonant perfect harmonies worth the frequent awkward dissonances? I suppose it will be a subjective judgement as to whether the different tonalities provide "colour" or "noise". To me, there's a feeling of the home key being somewhat hemmed in, constrained by the dissonance that will result as we modulate to others, and I like the democracy and freedom of equal temperament. For choirs, or string ensembles and soloists, where the tuning can be adjusted on the fly, different considerations take precedent, and more resonant harmonies can be created.

Bravo

Très bel accent français :)

The perfect selection for this demonstration! Kinberger harmonics sounded very close to even temperament. Rameau tuning sounded sweeter in some sections and I think I preferred that tunning Quarter-comma meantone sounded wrong to my ears as some of the voices just sounded out-of-tune.

To those who follow more modern concepts here: could you create a microtonal equal temperament which aligns roughly or exactly to non equal temperaments such as the ones displayed here? Probably would require a bit of math and ingenuity to line them up.

What about Bradley Lehman's interpretation of Bach's well-temperament based on the frontispiece of The 48?

Harpsichord has limited ableit it doee certainly have dynamics based in harder or softer key touches

Thank you, this is very interesting! I like the sound of the middle tuning. The first one sounds really irritating to me

Yes!, I would think he did go all out for this because he has an extreme passion for making music, learning and teaching music, and performing music for others. Quite extraordinary and beautiful.

Fascinating introduction, and a wonderful performance, John. Ta.

Should add in title and this is CVP 65, 1991

Floppy drive is easily replaced by USB drive, capable of storing on flash memory and memory cards. Segments of recorded music can be copied to USB memory.

How the composers of the period composed on such instruments is a mystery. These instruments always give me the worst headaches after 10 minutes of playing.

Really interesting video! Question: you put the Wulf of the meantone between G-sharp and E-flat. Especially in the C- minor piece that is quite heavy! Perhaps the wulf on another place would be better for this piece? I must say: I did not know the Rameau tuning, but I was pleasantly surprised by the sound of it! Thanks for posting!

Hello everybody

Désaccordé? quel dommage

The Rameau seems, at least to my ear, to deliver the most satisfying tonality in the performance.

The ability to sustain notes and resonance on the spinet, over a harpsichord, give a whole new and delightful character.

Quarter comma meantone but it really depends on which changes in the prelude i am rating. Rameau sounds too much like ET

A wonderful performance as always. Also that's an exceptional piece of artwork by your father. I forget the genre/school it falls under now. It's something I meant to look at a month or so ago.

Thank you for making this video. It seems like the Clerambault (which I also learned thanks to you) may have been influenced by this. I find these two preludes to be wonderful introductions to this world, especially through your teaching. :-)

Thank you for your thoughts! They are very interesting! But I am still doubting .. When I look at the score of Courperin's suites, I find the pieces quite complicated and not -- as you tell us -- providing too few details. I wonder, why Couprin uses such a variety of small notes and complex rhythmical figures and ornaments, but allegedly refrains from doing so elsewhere and writes just something like a hollow scheme, that has to be filled out ... E. g. in the 9-th bar the first four notes are not dottet, only the last two. I know, that harpsichord players always use to play such passages in "French style", but why then Couperin uses dottet notes at all, when he expects, that we play the normal notes everywhere as if they were dottet? And somethimes -- at least for me -- a non-arpeggiato chord sounds much more expressive, especially, when it contains a dissonant note. Of course, I also try to variegate a passage, when I repeat it (even if I play Bach), but I consider it as my freedom and not as filling out something, which is lacking in the original.

your choice of tuning always strikes me as incredibly natural. F# minor definitely one of the hardest keys for me to play on keyboards regardless of the type of music, thanks for this upload.